Promotion of Learning in India during Muhammadan Rule (by Muhammadans) c3.10

c3.10

From Maḥmūd, Mr. Law passes on to the House of Ghor. He rigorously sticks to his thesis of the promotion of learning, and so says very little about Muḥammad Ghorī (Mu’izzu-d-dīn b. Sām), whose conquests, as Elphinstone truly says, were far greater as regards India than those of Maḥmūd. It was he who defeated the Rajah of Ajmere, and was the first real conqueror of India. It is his victories over Hindus that earned him the title of Sulṭān Ghāzī. Nor does Mr. Law say much about Muḥammad Ghorī’s slave and viceroy, Quṭbu-d-dīn Aibak, who ruled India for four and twenty years and founded the Quṭb Minār which implies that he promoted Art, if not Letters. It was completed by Shamsu-d-dīn Altamash, who was Quṭbu-d-dīn’s son-in-law. He too was originally a Turkish slave, and is said to owe his curious sobriquet to his having been born during an eclipse of the moon (Badā’ūnī I., Ranking’s translation, p. 88). Altamash was an enlightened prince, and showed his sense by appointing his daughter, Sulṭān Rezia, as his successor, instead of his sons.